It is a current research method to evaluate the outcome of diseases over decades, mainly in most prevalent diseases such as myocardial infarction, a public health issue with a significant toll in morbidity and mortality of the population. In addition to evolving over time, local conditions may also contribute to differences in outcome, mainly in countries with continental dimensions as Brazil is, as well as with large populations (206.081.432 habitants in 2016; 210.147.125 habitants in 2019). Other epidemiologic variables, such as age, sex, access to treatment, co-morbidities, etc. – are part of the continuous spectrum of health care and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.

In the current study authors evaluated mortality data from a National Database System on Mortality in five geographic Brazilian regions between 1996 and 2016. Researchers corrected obtained from death certificates adjusting for: a) ill defined causes of death; b) codes-garbage without meaning for a causality study; c) correction for under registry or notification. The analysis was made in time series with segmented linear regression.

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